Marc Márquez takes the podium in a wet race
MADRID, 1 Oct. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Spanish rider Jorge Martín (Ducati) has won victory in Sunday’s MotoGP race of the Japanese Grand Prix, the thirteenth round of the motorcycle World Championship, in which he beat the championship leader, the Italian Francesco Bagnaia, under water. (Ducati), which he now has only three points behind with six rounds remaining.
The rain conditioned the activity in Motegi and the race was reduced to just over half the number of laps – 13 of 24 – due to poor visibility on the track. Two red flags definitively ended the race and distributed points to the drivers for their position in the race before the suspension.
Thus, the one from San Sebastián de los Reyes took his third long race victory of the year ahead of ‘Pecco’ Bagnaia who cushioned the blow by finishing second. Behind, Marc Márquez (Repsol Honda) was on the podium for the first time since the 2022 Australian Grand Prix.
With his double of the weekend, after also winning the sprint race on Saturday, Martín now has 316 points and is only three behind Bagnaia, who has seen how in a few weeks the income of 59 units with which he faced the final stretch of the championship. In Indonesia, ‘Martinator’ will try to take first place overall.
The immense amount of rain that fell on the Motegi circuit forced the marshals to wave the first red flag halfway through the race. Before, at the start and with the test declared dry, Martín managed to defend his privileged position from Saturday while the stewards were already showing the rain flags.
In a stampede, the pilots began to change their bikes to get the water configuration, which by lap five all the participants would have. The Madrid native, who had given up positions in the chaos, only had to wait for the sixth lap to command the race again.
Behind, Bagnaia and Aleix Espargaró were beginning to give in to Martín’s pace, and Márquez took advantage of this to hunt down the latter and take a podium position. Just after a scare from Cervera, the race stopped. The drivers waited for the restart in the garages, but the track conditions prevented the test from being completed.
Among the rest of the Spaniards, Aleix Espargaró (Aprilia) finished fifth, Augusto Fernández (KTM) finished seventh, Raúl Fernández (Aprilia) finished ninth, Joan Mir (Repsol Honda) was twelfth and Pol Espargaró (KTM) fifteenth. Outside the points zone, nineteenth, was Maverick Viñales (Aprilia), who suffered a fall as soon as he left.